Aktobe governor proposes to stiffen penalties for illegal oil and gas sale
The head of the region announced this proposal at the interregional forum Problems of Illegal Oil and Gas Sales in Aktobe town.
Opening the forum, Berdybek Saparbayev stressed that the illegal sales of oil and gas are a challenging issue for Kazakhstan including Aktobe region.
"It is a matter of national security and stability. Everybody knows the implications of illegal sales of oil and gas: considerable losses of the budget revenue, cash outflow from the country, falling living standards of the population, deterioration of the investment climate. All this endangers the implementation of the state and government programs," the governor emphasized.
There are 29 crude hydrocarbon developers who are now successfully operating in Aktobe region. This year, it is planned to produce 5.9 million tons of crude oil, 6.5 billion cubic meters of gas. According to the Head of State's instruction, the enterprises will invest at least KZT 60 billion to modernize the oil and gas industry within the next five years. This year alone, the regional enterprises will be carrying out 19 geological exploration works.
Currently, the Department of Internal Affairs of Aktobe region is investigating 17 criminal cases related to illegal sale or theft of oil.
"The illegal sale is a financing source for the activities of certain organized criminal groups including radical religious movements," the head of the region said.
In addition, Berdybek Saparbayev announced a number of proposals to confront illegal operations with hydrocarbons. In particular, he announced the initiatives to upgrade penalties for illegal sales of hydrocarbons, establish the Republican working group that would audit the current regulatory and legal framework with regard to illegal sales of oil and gas, and create a centralized data bank for chemical composition of oil produced in all fields of the country to simplify the identification of the source of theft.
Kazakhstan's Deputy Prosecutor General Andrey Lukin, Chief Transport Prosecutor Marat Alikhanov, representatives of the President's Executive Office, the National Security Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National Anticorruption Bureau, the Border Guard Service, ministries, prosecutors, and deputy governors of Atyrau, West Kazakhstan, and Mangistau regions are attending the forum.